Any suggestions?

[Indycolts1786]

I like historical novels a lot! I also like them to be a little on the romance side. However, I don't care for just straight up romance novels because I've found a lot of them don't have a strong plot and story line. I just finished reading The Other Boleyn Girl and fell in love with it.

Does anyone have any suggestions for romance/historical fiction? Or is there a romance book that you think has a strong and interesting plot?

I am up for anything! Thanks!

 

[stephiebaby]

Does anyone have any suggestions for romance/historical fiction? Or is there a romance book that you think has a strong and interesting plot?

I am up for anything! Thanks!

Ok, I'm going to give it a shot.

Have you ever read the Outlander series?? It's written by Diana Gabaldon. I think that there are 5 or 6 of them. They are about...

It is the story of Claire Randell, a nurse during world war two and a time traveller.

Claire Randell was on a second honeymoon in Scotland with her husband Frank who had just returned from the war. Strangers to each other they were attempting to rekindle the romance of yesteryear.

But the small problems in her marriage are nothing compared to the problems she faces as she steps through a cleft in a stone circle and finds herself in the middle of a violent skirmish in the year of 1743.

Rescued from the clutches of her husband's ancestor she is held by the Scottish Laird Callum MacKenzie on the suspicion of spying.

An English woman in Scotland in the 1740's she applies her nursing skills to the inhabitants of the castle and in doing so gains the trust and friendship of Mrs FitzGibbons and the secretive Jamie MacTavish.

Less wanted is the attention of the MacKenzie brothers Dougal and Callum.

She also gains the friendship of the witchcraft dabbling Geillie Duncan, wife of the procurator fiscal of the nearby village and a dangerous ally.

Trapped in the past she searches for a way to escape back to the standing stones of Craigh na Dun and hopefully into the future.

But things are not quite so simple as she finds herself alone in the Scottish highlands on the run from both the Scottish and the English. Captured by the English and then taken back by the Scots she is given a choice. Torture at the hands of the English or marriage to Jamie Fraser (MacTavish).

A brilliant novel filled with twists in the plot Diana Gabaldon takes us into the highlands during the years before the second Jacobite uprising. A time when someone with knowledge of the future would be seen as a witch and anyone English would be seen as a spy.

Although it can take a little time to get into this novel I thoroughly suggest sticking it out until Claire travels back in time. From this point on I am one of the many who could not put this book down.

Filled with romance and passion this story is told with a unique humour that makes you laugh at even the oldest of jokes. As we follow Claire on her journey and her goals change as do ours. Few writers can switch goals so dramatically and still have you rooting for the heroinne of the novel. Diana Gabaldon manages this with easy expertise. If you have never read a time travel romance then break with tradition and pick up a copy of this fantastic novel now.

And that's just the 1st one! They are all pretty good, it does get kind of boring so maybe space them out.

Hope it helped!

 

[The waveguide]

"I, Claudius" by Robert Graves is a great book.


"The Pity of It All" by Amos Elon was extremely interesting to read, although I would not call it a roman. It is written very well, brings very descriptively German history between 1740-1933, easy to read.

enjoy

 

[Proofreader]

Georgette Heyer is good value - most are lightweight but she knew her period intimately and she also wrote more serious historical fiction. Philippa Carr is another whose history is always good and whose books are usually romantic. Anya Seton is worth looking at.

 

[Indycolts1786]

sweet!! thank you so much for your suggestions... i will definately be checking them out!!

 

[stephiebaby]

Hi, I know that you've gotten many great suggestions but I thought of another one. I don't know exactly what you want, but this book was awesome.

Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier

When American Ella Turner moves with her husband to Lisle-sur-Tarn, a small town in southwestern France, she hopes to qualify to practice as a midwife as well as to start a family of her own. Instead she is disrupted by less-than-idyllic village life and strange dreams of the color blue. Haunted by sleepless nights, bewildered by her unwelcoming neighbors, Ella tries to forge a bond with her new home by investigating her French ancestors, with the help of seductive librarian Jean-Paul. Ella’s research takes her to the Cévennes, isolated mountains in the south and the birthplace of the Tournier/Turner family.

16th-century peasant Isabelle du Moulin, known as La Rousse for her red hair, is suspected of witchcraft and tormented for her association with the Virgin Mary even after she and the rest of the village have converted to the “Truth” – the new Protestantism as preached by Calvin’s ministers. When she becomes pregnant, she has no choice but to marry into the powerful Tournier family. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew in Paris sends waves of persecution throughout France, and the Tourniers are forced to flee their home near Le Pont de Montvert for a new life in the Swiss town of Moutier. Old ways follow them there, however, and Isabelle's final shocking fate lies undiscovered — until Ella Turner's arrival four centuries later…

I do hope that you consider this one, it is truly amazing, as well as her other books Fallen Angels and The Girl With the Pearl Earring.